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OVERBURDENING THE PRESIDENCY & THE BBOG MOVEMENT?

Nigeria is in dire straits,especially from
a security perspective. Everyday that passes, it looks like things are falling
apart and the centre is finding it difficult to hold. I do not know how the
government and party in power view this situation. Some how, it seems to me
that they are essentially hoping that things will soon sort themselves out. But
that strategy seems not to be working well so far and I am getting really
worried that by the time this strategy eventually comes to work, things may
have completely gone out of hand, because in the long run we would all be dead
as the economists say. It is true that Nigeria has a high fertility rate, but
the way Nigerians are being slaughtered everyday these days,soon we will begin
to depopulate Nigeria at a rate much higher than the birth rate.

I
do not think that this is a valid population control strategy. Boko Haram is
bombing and killing daily and those they fail to kill, they abduct. The
militant Fulani herdsmen have gone completely berserk. In the last two weeks
they returned to the Plateau perhaps to teach Governor Lalong that their
madness has nothing to do with the anti-open grazing law. When the militant
herdsmen welcomed the people of Benue into the new year with murder and mayhem,
Lalong openly blamed Governor Ortom for enacting the anti- open grazing bill. I
felt that Lalong was speaking like a man who had taken flight from reality or
suffering from amnesia. How could he have forgotten that for several years
before the law, the militant Fulani herdsmen had been killing and confiscating
land all over the North central region, extending to the South from 2015 when
this government came to power. So after killing only 4 people previously on
Saturday they returned early in the week-Monday 12th March and killed 25 people
in Zirshe Dundu in the Kwall district of Bassa LGA, bringing the total killed
to 29. These were buried on Tuesday 13 th April. And virtually everyday since
then, they have descended to other villages, killing in both Bassa and
Bokkos LGAs. I have been waiting to hear
from Governor Lalong. I guess he has lost his voice

Rather than take far reaching measures to stop
this fast descent to anarchy, we seem to revel in adhoc and ineffective
measures. After each orgy of killings, the President would direct the Police
and security officers to go and arrest the perpetrators. I have often wondered
why the security officers would wait to be directed by the President to carry
out their normal constitutional
responsibilities. Could it be why so many crimes are unresolved in this Country? Maybe the Police are always waiting for orders from the Presidency. But then,
do these orders get carried out diligently, if at all? Last week, the Nation
was embarrassed to hear that the IGP failed, refused or ignored the orders of
Mr President to relocate to Benue. And what was worse, the President did not
even know that his order was not carried out! What a Country!

In
the circumstances we find ourselves, one would expect that the Presidency would
seek lasting solutions to our current security challenges that seem to be
defying normal military options. It is looking to me that the solution to this
problem is largely political, since we have defeated Boko Haram militarily and
yet when our soldiers are removed,they return to abduct our school girls.

To
me, it is becoming imperative that the government must look at the
recommendations of the 2014 National conference especially in the sections
dealing with Restructuring and National cohesion. The President can not
continue to hold the recommendations of that conference in contempt while it
has the solution to the main problems confronting him and the Nation.

Alternatively he can push through the restructuring proposals we heard that APC
has made through the Nasir El-Rufai committee. This Country must be saved from
itself!

I
also believe it will be a better, more productive, less hazardous and less
physically tasking option than the new assignment we seem to have pushed on the President. In addition to his job as Commander in-chief of the armed forces
of Nigeria, he has been forced to also become the condoler or consoler-in-chief of the victims of terrorism and militancy in Nigeria. The President
was most reluctant to assume this responsibility for months, despite prodding
from the opposition and the media, until his friend and former running mate
Pastor Tunde Bakare lashed at him for refusing to go and condole with the
Parents of the Dapchi Girls in Yobe, preferring rather to join the party of 22
Governors at the wedding of the children of Governors Ajimobi and Ganduje in
Kano. That seemed to break his resistance. Since then he had been to Taraba
State to console families of those who lost their lives in Mambilla. Then he
headed to Benue to join in the burial of recently killed 73 indigenes of Benue
by the militant Fulani herdsmen. Thereafter he headed to Yobe State to condole
with the parents of the 110 Dapchi school girls abducted by the 'defeated' Boko
Haram insurgents where he promised the grieving parents that their children
would be home soon safe and healthy. According to Femi Adesina, the President
is already scheduled to visit several other States where either Boko Haram or
the militant Fulani herdsmen have caused mayhem and grief.

But
my real worry is that the list of States is growing by the day. I am not sure
Plateau was in the original list of States to be visited on this condolence
visits schedule. But after the mayhem of the last fortnite, he will have to go
to Plateau to condole with the people of Bassa and Bokkos LGAs. This past week,
the mayhem train arrived Kogi State where about 25 people were killed by
suspected Fulani herdsmen, so Kogi has to be added on the list. Does anybody
know what it costs the Federal Government for the President to undertake these
trips? Then what of the cost in physical exertion to the President who has to
take the trips, make the speeches and try to empathize with these grieving
Nigerians. Though the President is an army General, the emotional and
psychological cost to his health must be enormous. It must be a terrible
feeling to repeatedly console people who lost their relations or who had their
children abducted, acts for which government has the principal responsibility
to prevent. I just hope and pray that nobody will request him to make another
visit to Benue to console a new set of relations of the 26 people who were
killed in Benue late last week, less than two weeks after his last visit. Yes,
the relations of the new victims deserve to be consoled, but he can not be
going round in a cycle condoling or consoling repeatedly. The President needs
time to seat down in his office and deal with other issues of governance. I
feel that we may just be overburdening this President!

Talking of overburdening, I think we are also overburdening my sister
Oby Ezekwesili and her Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) movement. In 2014 over 300
CHIBOK girls were abducted and when government was dilly dallying with the
effort to rescue the girls, Oby and her ally Hadiza founded the BBOG movement
to push the government to take more definite and urgent actions to free the
girls. In the process they aroused International interest and support for the
bring back our girls effort. Thankfully a substantial number of the girls had
been rescued and released through negotiations and some form of 'prisoner'
exchange. But the movement remained unyielding in their campaign to ensure the
last girl comes home.

And everyone was hoping that the BBOG would be winding down to at least
allow Oby focus attention on the Coalition for Nigeria Movement,(CNM) which I
believe she is a prime mover, then Dapchi happens forcing BBOG to return to the
trenches and barricades in a renewed campaign to bring back the outstanding
CHIBOK Girls and the 110 Dapchi girls. To be true,I believe this is causing extra-ordinary
burden for Oby and her compatriots in the BBOG movement. I just hope and pray
that this Boko Haram game of preying on our school girls has ended with Dapchi.
We must take all measures possible and go to every length possible to ensure
there is no third incident. CHIBOK and Dapchi are enough burden for the BBOG
movement please.

Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa OFR

sam@starteamconsult.com

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